Thermoelectric Generator (TEG) provides unique advantages as compared to other heat engines as it is capable to convert heat to electricity directly without having any moving parts. Furthermore, TEG is compact, simple and noiseless and requires very minimal maintenance. This paper presents an experimental and analytical study of a model consisting of a TEG located between a copper water cooling jacket and an aluminium block which acts as a heat spreader. The copper water cooling jacket was used in this study as water has higher thermal capacity than air. Besides, copper is one of highest thermal conductivity materials. TEG characterisation in term of electrical was investigated in this study. Based on the result, it shows a linear proportion relationship between open-circuit voltage and temperature difference across TEG. The result also clearly shows the power output of TEG increases as the temperature gradient across TEG increases. In addition, the impact of water flowrate on TEG power output was also studied. Based on the finding, there was an optimum water flowrate of 80 ml/s. Further increasing the water flowrate is not favourable as it will not increase power output and may lead to higher pumping power for water circulation. At this optimum water flowrate, the maximum power output obtained is equal to 530 mW when TEG hot-side temperature (Th) is 180 ℃.

Solar energy can be harnessed to produce thermal and electrical energy. With regard to this, Solar Photovoltaic (PV) is a well-known solar technology that is used to convert from solar energy to electrical energy. Nevertheless, Solar PV efficiency drops as the solar PV panel temperature increases. Another way to generate electricity from the solar energy is to use Solar Thermoelectric Generator (STEG). STEG is a hybrid technology between solar thermal collector and Thermoelectric Generator (TEG). A main advantage of STEG is it can produce thermal and electrical energy simultaneously. In this study, a theoretical model was developed to predict the STEG output and performance. An STEG model which consists of an Evacuated Tube Heat Pipe Solar Collector (ETHPSC), four water cooling jackets and four TEGs, was set up in this study. In order to determine whether the theoretical model is accurate enough for the prediction, a comparison was carried out between the theoretical and experimental data. Based on the result, the comparison provides a good correlation between the former and the latter and the highest error obtained is less than 20%.

Over years, researches on power generation from low grade heat energy sources have been increasing rapidly as it will be beneficial towards environment, human lives and also for long term sustainability. Due to its biggest potential and advantages, thermoelectric generator has been reliably used to generate electricity. In this project, an experiment on power generation using thermoelectric generator by employing low grade heat (<150 °C) energy source was carried out. The main purpose of this project was to generate useful electricity using thermoelectric generator and to investigate the quality of heat exchanger in enhancing the performance of thermoelectric generator. A prototype heat exchanger was used to carry out this experiment. The heat exchanger was tested with varied hot and cold water supply to study the effect of temperature difference on the thermoelectric generators. For this project, the highest output power obtained was 0.98 W and the maximum efficiency was 1.91%.

Power generation from fossil fuels in the recent years causes pollution to the environment, thus renewable energy must be considered as an alternative. Solar energy comes directly from the sun and harnessing this energy is crucial for a sustainable future. In this research, a parabolic solar dish collector was utilized to harness the solar energy. The parabolic dish was hybridized with a thermoelectric generator (TEG) to produce both heat and electricity simultaneously. Since TEG has no moving parts, it requires almost no maintenance, thus making it reliable and robust. This paper presents the experimental investigation performed on the concentrator to convert heat energy from the concentrated solar power using TEGs. The goal of the project was to efficiently generate electricity by using the concentrating dish to concentrate the solar radiation onto the TEG. The TEG was installed on the focal point of the concentrating dish to convert the thermal energy into electricity directly. Air-cooled, fan-cooled and water-cooled cooling method were introduced to cool the generators. At the end of the experiment, it was found out that water-cooled cooling method induced the highest voltage among the other cooling methods.